‘They are dead?’ he asked, in a hoarse gasping voice. I nodded, and he gave a low cry and sank to the earth as one dead. I halloaed loudly, and John the Smith and his big son came running from their house with bills in their hands. But I told them what had befallen, and John’s son fetching water from the brook, we bathed Thomas’s face therewith; so after a time he came to himself, though moaning a little as though he were sore hurt. We half led and half carried him to the Smith’s house, where they sat him on a great chair by the fire. It was a long time before he spoke, and we stood apart from him, the womenfolk and the children gazing curiously and pityingly at him from the corner. Then he said, ‘How did they die?’ and we told him shortly that the men of William of Beeston had slain them. ‘Kat and all my little ones; they did not leave a single one,’ he said, and his head dropped slowly upon his breast and a single tear welled from each of his eyes. After that he was quiet again, and we knew not what to say to comfort him, so after a little time I went my way home, and he stayed with John the Smith that night. The next morning I went to see how he fared. He was still sitting on the great chair by the fireside where I had left him overnight, and indeed they told me he had never moved or spoken a single word since. He sat with his head on his bosom and his eyes half closed, fidgeting with his fingers like a little boy who has been shamed for tardiness at school. John greeted him as I entered, and asked him to break his fast on bacon and beer, but he denied him and asked for a cup of water, which they brought him. When he saw me he rose unsteadily. ‘I will go to my house,’ he said, and went towards the door. ‘Go not to-day,’ cried the Smith’s wife. ‘Sit and rest thee a while.’ ‘Nay, good wife, but I will go,’ he said. ‘Ay, but the man is as weak as a sick dog,’ she cried. ‘Prithee, good husband, if he will go, go thou with him.’